<p> Peer coaching is an alternative form of professional development in which teachers coach other teachers in the development of their practice. Studies have shown that teachers who have participated in a peer-coaching model have a higher rate of transfer of skill when compared to teachers who do not participate in this type of model. Although peer coaching has been proven to be effective, there is a lack of research documenting peer coaching interactions, how peers establish trust, and how they perceive peer coaching to impact their instruction. Analyzing how peers interact and what they say to each other to move instruction forward is therefore, important to understanding how school leaders and program directors can set up their environments to encourage these types of interactions. </p><p> The participants for this study enrolled in a National Writing Project summer institute. The data set for this study included semi-structured interviews, stimulated recall interviews, and digital entries relevant to the inquiry. To identify the codes, categories, and themes emerging from the data set, this study used constant comparative analysis. </p><p> Findings from this study suggest that informal interactions are just as important as formal interactions in building trust between peer coaches. Findings also suggest the importance of the writing group as paramount and purposeful for both composing and teaching writing. Findings also suggest that trust is built quickly in an environment such as a National Writing Project summer institute. Participants felt a sense of comfort when they were able to attend this summer institute with somebody that they already knew, believing that this helped them in establishing an initial level of comfort that served as a springboard for building additional relationships. Future research could continue to analyze both formal and informal interactions at the summer institute to revise a model of peer coaching that would assist program leaders in developing and enhancing the interactions between participants.</p>

This study reports the results of a survey administered to 175 graduate teaching assistants in a sample of six southeastern modern language departments. Of the questionnaires mailed out, 93 (53%) respondents participated. The specific purposes of this study were to determine: (a) if TAs were receiving coverage of various training items during their graduate preparation and training, and to what extent the coverage could be compared with the perceived importance of various areas in TA training between five variables (language, experience, degree, certification, and institution), (b) the relationship of the five factors on the separate categories of coverage of TA training items and the perceived importance of those items, (c) categorizations of the most and the least beneficial items in TA training, and (d) comments by the TAs concerning their training. / Paired t tests were used to make the comparison between coverage of items and their perceived importance according to the five variables. For each variable, the teaching assistants perceived that the training for each item was more important than the actual coverage they were receiving. / The five background variables were analyzed using an ANOVA to determine their individual effect on the separate categories of the coverage and the perceived importance of TA training items. There was no significant effect for any of the variables on the perceptions of importance of TA training items. The only significant effect on the coverage of items came from those respondents who taught in private institutions. / The most frequent beneficial item listed by TAs was the teaching of communication skills. The item most frequently listed as least beneficial was theory of language teaching and learning. / The comments of TAs about teaching assistant training and preparation ranged from complimentary remarks to very negative statements regarding departmental efforts in their training and preparation. / The results of this study indicated that many of the TA training topics proposed by professional organizations were not being implemented, and that the bulk of graduate training in southeastern modern language departments is still literary oriented. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-01, Section: A, page: 0097. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

On major problem besetting secondary education in Oyo State of Nigeria is the students' lack of adequate skill in the use of English, resulting in their mass failure in the English language examinations set by the West African Examinations Council. / Though some studies aimed at solving this problem have been conducted, none of them has examined the adequacy of the preservice training of the teachers of English in these schools. Underlying this study, therefore, was the assumption that in an English as a second language situation like that of Oyo State, the competency of the teacher is a crucial factor in the successful learning outcomes of students. / The study examined the adequacy of the preparation of ESL teachers in Oyo State secondary schools and decided whether that preparation was related to the teachers' instructional practices. / From the review of literature, five competencies were identified as crucial to an ESL teacher education: written composition, reading, applied linguistics, listening/speaking skills, and the teaching of English. These were then developed into a 23-item questionnaire and administered to 270 English language teachers in 90 urban high schools in the state. The survey instrument asked the teachers questions about their preparation, instructional practices and in-service training programs. / Two hundred copies of the questionnaire were returned; the teachers' responses were scored through the use of a scoring guide and the preparation and practice scores were tabulated. A chi-square test was run on the teachers' reported preparation and practice scores to determine if the teachers' preparation was significantly related to their practices. Analysis of the responses indicated that while most of the teachers were adequately prepared in reading and applied linguistics, very few reported adequate training in writing, listening/speaking skills, and the teaching of English. The teachers' reported preparation and instructional practices were related. / On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that the preservice training of teachers in Oyo State was inadequate and needed urgent correction through inservice training programs if these teachers were to perform their duties effectively as ESL instructors. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-07, Section: A, page: 2261. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

This study examined the effects of topic choice on ESL essay writing by answering the following research question: What are the differences between the mean scores of 98 adult university-level nonnative English speakers on each of five subscores of two writing tasks when those differences are controlled for the students' overall language proficiency by using their scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)? / The subjects were selected by availability from the Center for Intensive English Studies at Florida State University and from the university at large and were randomly assigned into one of two treatment groups. Group 1 was administered an assigned topic on the writing test. This topic ("Discuss a recent event and its effect on your country") was the normal test topic used at CIES and had been used before with reliable results. Group 2 wrote on the open topic ("Choose any topic you like and write a composition on it"). After the tests, the compositions were scored according to the ESL Composition Profile. Finally, the subjects took the TOEFL in order to determine their overall language proficiency. / Pearson product-moment correlations were run first between all variables, with no relationship shown between the topics and subscores of the writing test. In order to test the null hypothesis (H(,O): (mu)(,T) = (mu)(,NT) for the total scores and for each subscore), a factorial design using a one-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) with two treatment levels was planned, with the effects of overall language proficiency partialled out as a covariate. However, the ANCOVA was not carried out, as the null hypothesis had been confirmed. There were, however, unusually high correlations shown between all other variables (e.g., TOEFL subscores and totals and ESL Composition Profile subscores and total scores.) / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-10, Section: A, page: 2951. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

Reader-response criticism focuses on the active role of the reader in creating meaning in a work of literature. Since different readers experience the same work differently, the validity of a particular interpretation is established through a group process of negotiation among members of a reading community. / This study was undertaken to determine whether a first-year college composition course involving the study of literature can be taught effectively by means of methods based on the assumptions of reader-response criticism. / A class taught by reader-response methods was compared with two other classes. Students in the three sections completed attitude questionnaires before and after the course. Their final essays, written on a common topic, were scored holistically by impartial evaluators. Five students from each section were subjects of case studies; they were interviewed regarding their attitudes toward writing and literature, and they wrote brief interpretive responses to three poems at intervals during the semester. Their written interpretations were scored holistically and their interview responses analyzed qualitatively for information on how students perceive English classes and what problems they associate with the study of literature and writing. / The attitude questionnaries showed that the reader-response students' attitudes toward literature and writing improved as much as did those of students taught by more traditional methods. Their scores on the final essay equaled those of the other two classes. The case study analysis indicated that the reader-response group's ability to write interpretive responses to poetry improved twice as much as that of one control group and eight times as much as that of the other group. / It was concluded that reader-response criticism is a viable basis for effective teaching of such composition courses. Student attitudes improve; students write essays similar in overall quality to those written in more traditional classes; and many problems common to such courses are alleviated. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-05, Section: A, page: 1637. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

This study investigated the ability of college freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, in a predominantly Black college, to interpret metaphorical language and to differentiate their abilities in the interpretation of six types of tropes: Litotes, personification, synecdoche, hyperbole, metonymy and incarnation. / The data were acquired from 400 responses for 98 freshmen, 101 sophomores, 104 juniors and 97 seniors at Albany State College on the Revised Tullos Test of Metaphorical Language Interpretation. The respondents reacted to 72 multiple-choice items. / According to F-tests in one-way analysis of variance there were significant differences between the total score means for freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, and also for each of the six tropes. / Analysis comparing contiguous sub-group means by the Scheffe's Procedure of Multiple Range Comparison and the S-method of Multiple Comparisons, disclosed that the development of metaphorical language interpretation skills did not improve significantly from year-to-year during the college experiences except during the freshman and sophomore years. From the end of the sophomore college year, no significant improvement was further noticed among juniors and seniors. The researcher's subsequent hypotheses is that the cresting of metaphorical language interpretation skills at the end of the sophomore year and its lack of further improvement in the junior and senior college years may be due to the absence of required English fundamentals courses in the junior and senior years. / In addition to the primary concerns, this study sought to determine which of the six tropes proved to be difficult for each of the four sub-groups of subjects. This was determined by comparing z scores means within each of the subgroups (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors). It was found that: (1) Freshmen most often failed to interpret correctly the personification trope. (2) Sophomores most often failed to interpret correctly the incarnation trope. (3) Juniors most often failed to interpret correctly the trope personification. (4) Seniors most often failed to interpret correctly the metonymy trope. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: A, page: 3248. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The study investigated media effect of text, teacher-as-reader, and television on the quality of students' writing, when stimulus stories were presented prior to writing episodes. Media effect was measured within subject sample and within levels of student writing ability. Secondary questions were related to difference by medium in (1) carry-over to student writing of stimulus story vocabulary and textual or narrative content, (2) incidence of statements containing overt action, and (3) length of compositions. Once weekly for three weeks, three comparable groups of 30 randomly selected fifth-graders from a Southwest Georgia school system received the same three stimulus stories, but via different media and in different order. Following each stimulus, subjects wrote from assignments designed to elicit expressive writing patterned after the stimulus story. Interviews about writing processes were conducted with 26 randomly selected subjects from subgroups by race, sex, and predicted writing ability. Correlated t-tests revealed no significant differences in quality of writing or in composition length, as a result of different media. Significantly more statements based on textual or narrative content of stimulus stories appeared, however, after televised stimuli. Descriptive data revealed some strong patterns of writing behavior which corroborated findings of previous studies. These included: (1) planning briefly before writing; (2) composing stories while writing; (3) encountering few problems with writing; (4) making few changes; (5) reading over stories not at all or to check for mechanics; (6) finding difficulty beginning stories; (7) verbalizing about writing processes in generalizations. An unusual finding was that students enjoyed writing these stories. Implications are: (1) literary models, regardless of the medium of presentation, help fifth-grade / students to write; (2) literature can have a positive effect on students' attitudes toward writing; (3) television can be an effective medium for presenting literary works as writing stimuli; (4) television may be more effective than independent reading or listening in impressing stimulus story textual or narrative content on students for later use in composing their own stories. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3832. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

This is an experimental study to find out what kinds of revisions are made by students at three grade levels and to test a major tenet of the textbook lore about revision: that students should allow time to elapse between their drafting and revising. Randomly assigned groups of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders (178 subjects) wrote a first draft in response to an essay topic and, then, after varying periods of elapsed time--one day, three days, and a week--wrote a final version. All writing sessions were 50-minute class periods. Draft-to-draft revisions were coded; first drafts and final versions were holistically scored. A chi-square distribution-free test was run to determine main effects of and interactions between grade level and elapsed time. / The 8th graders made significantly more total revisions and significantly more surface-level (mechanics, usage, etc.) and low-level (word and phrase) revisions. Subjects who rewrote a week later made significantly more low-level revisions. Less than a third of all revisions for all groups were surface-level revisions. There were more substitutions than any other nonsurface revision; over half of the substitutions were clause and multiclause revisions. Text-level revisions (radically altered final versions) accounted for 16.3% of the sample. Of all final versions, 58.9% received a higher score than that awarded the first draft. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3830. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

This study was conducted to determine the effects of divorce on the expressive and receptive language development of 3-5 year old nursery school children. Independent variables were: parental absence, duration of divorce, educational level of parents, family size, sex, and income level of families. The dependent variable was language development (expressive and receptive). / The sample for the study consisted of 70, 3-5 year old nursery boys and girls (30 from divorced and 40 from non-divorced families) who were randomly drawn from four randomly identified nursery schools--one from each geographical area--among the population of 65 public and private nursery schools of Leon County, Florida, during the 1979-80 school year. A questionnaire developed by the investigator was administered to the parents of participating children to seek information regarding the children's family background. Two language tests designed to measure receptive and expressive responses of children were administered to each child. These instruments were: (a) Carrow Elicited Language Inventory (C.E.L.I.) as an expressive test and (b) Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (T.A.C.L.) as a receptive test. / Multiple linear regression (MLR) was utilized to explore the hypotheses of the study. A significant level for rejecting the null hypotheses was set at (alpha) = 0.05. The results were as follows: (1) There was a statistically significant difference between the receptive and expressive language of children from divorced and non-divorced families. Children from non-divorced families scored consistently higher in both receptive and expressive tests than children from divorced households. (2) Related to sex as a variable, no significant difference was found between receptive and expressive language of boys and girls from divorced families. Further investigation, however, showed that receptive and expressive language scores of girls from intact families were significantly higher than the expressive and receptive language scores of girls from divorces families. (3) The overall test showed no statistically significant difference between family income and the receptive and expressive language of children. But simple main effect showed that children who come from homes with incomes of $12,000-$17,999 (level 3) had significantly higher scores in receptive and expressive language than children whose family income was $0-$5,999 (level 1). (4) There was no statistically significant difference between family size and the receptive and expressive language development of children. But a statistically significant difference was obtained at (alpha) = 0.1. (5) There was no statistically significant difference between the receptive and expressive language development of father-absent and mother-absent children due to divorce. (6) There was no statistically significant relationship between the receptive and expressive language of divorced families' children and duration of divorce. (7) There was no statistically significant difference between the educational level of divorced parents and the receptive and expressive language of their children. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-08, Section: A, page: 3461. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

An examination of the nature and range of the English teaching profession's concern with media, this study reviewed the literature of English education from 1961-1978, with emphasis on four journals of the National Council of Teachers of English (Elementary English/Language Arts, English Journal, College English, and College Composition and Communication). A major purpose of the study was to discover the extent to which the media movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's was supported by rationales for the study and use of electronic and artistic media in English programs. The journals were the basis of a tally in which the profession's concerns with media were categorized, quantified, and analyzed. Other resources--methods texts, other journals, books from related subject areas--were also consulted, especially when the journals failed to treat some aspect of media adequately. / The categories of media-related materials found in the journals were, in order of frequency of inclusion: Referential (brief citations), Theoretical, Practical, Mechanical (media hardware), Quantitative (dealing with effects of media on students and society) and Analytical. The number of media-related articles (1,799 in all) showed a continuing pattern of growth between 1961 and 1978. / The examination of the categories revealed several points of interest, including a strong tendency for writers of Analytical articles to use the terminologies and methods of literary criticism when analyzing materials in non-print media. However, a smaller number of writers did use medium-specific approaches, criticizing the application of inappropriate tools of analysis. The Mechanical articles revealed the profession's persisting but unfocused concern with hardware aspects of media. Film hardware was seldom described in the journals. The tape recorder was the machine most frequently treated, usually in Practical articles. Computers were often cited for their potential for influencing instruction but were not seen as adequate tools for teaching most important skills and concepts. Several Practical articles uncovered theoretical concepts, such as transmediation, which refers to student translation of ideas from one medium (e.g., print) to another (e.g., a collage). Another such concept is focused perception, in which students react to a direct experience (e.g., a physical object) as if it were artistically mediated (e.g., a painting). / Theoretical materials in the journals generally took the form of briefly stated rationales, which were subcategorized and analyzed. The subcategories included media for their own sake; media as motivators; media as expedients; media as vehicles for traditional goals of English instruction; English and media in learning theory contexts; and English and media as bases for broader disciplines. The broader disciplines included humanities, general semantics, visual literacy, communications, semiotics, and aesthetic education. / The most powerful Theoretical rationales, both in the journals and other sources, were the infrequent explorations of media and English in relation to communication theory, semiotics, and learning theory. The last of these focused largely on Piagetian psychology, whole-brain education, and James Moffett's theories. Theoretical models that supported these rationales were presented and analyzed, and the author presented an original four-part theoretical model for media in English, bringing together the most useful theoretical statements and previous theoretical models. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1037. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.